Editorials & Other Articles

Two days after catastrophic floods roared through Central Texas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters.

The agency laid off the contractors on July 5 after their contracts expired and were not extended, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted a new requirement that she personally approve expenses over $100,000, did not renew the contracts until Thursday, five days after the contracts expired. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The details on the unanswered calls on July 6, which have not been previously reported, come as FEMA faces intense scrutiny over its response to the floods in Texas that have killed more than 120 people. The agency, which President Trump has called for eliminating, has been slow to activate certain teams that coordinate response and search-and-rescue efforts......

The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.

Some FEMA officials grew frustrated by the lapse in contracts and that it was taking days for Ms. Noem to act, according to the person briefed on the matter and the documents. “We still do not have a decision, waiver or signature from the DHS Secretary,” a FEMA official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues......

Democratic lawmakers raised concern on Friday that Ms. Noem’s insistence on approving expenses over $100,000 had also delayed FEMA’s deployment of search-and-rescue teams to Texas. In a letter to David Richardson, FEMA’s acting administrator, the Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote that Ms. Noem did not authorize the deployment of those teams until July 7, three days after the flooding began.